Bike Sets Up Big Wins for Amberger and Marangon

Bike Sets up Big Wins for Amberger and Marangon

Sunday, 20 October 2013

Brisbane’s Josh Amberger held off a strong field to claim victory in the IRONMAN 70.3 Port Macquarie today. Sydney’s Lisa Marangon put together a strong bike leg to set herself up for a convincing win in the women’s race.

For Amberger it was a reassuring win, recently returning home after a five month stint in the US from Sam Appleton who ran through the field to snare second and Joseph Lampe rounding out the podium.

Marangon dominated the bike and run to claim one her best wins over the distance, further inspired with 13-year-old son Josh watching on. Andrea Forrest delivered an outstanding performance to finish second ahead of Holly Ranson.

"It’s been a hard year for me I’ve just come back from five months in the USA and I’m just really happy to be racing back here in Australia," Amberger said.

"I think we do things a lot better down here and I couldn’t be happier with my performance today, the body felt fantastic.

Amberger has done his apprenticeship and learnt from mistakes to emerge as a real contender after today’s performance.

"I think if you’ve been following my racing, you’ve probably seen hints of my performance like today in my races this year and this is probably the first time it’s actually come together this season. Just stoked."

An emotional Marangon revealed a rough lead up to the race today.

"I’m so happy, I was unable to run because I had a calf strain so didn’t know if I’d be able to run," Marangon said.

The 24-year-old Amberger lead out of the swim from Joseph Lampe, Tom Davison and Casey Munro but by the half way mark on the 90km bike had pulled away from the field to lead by two minutes. At the changeover he had amassed a 4min 20sec lead to New Zealand’s Davison.

Davison managed to break away from the chase group to head out onto the run in chase of Amberger but faded on the back end of the run to finish sixth. Appleton put in a blistering run leg (1:15:02) to run through for second from Lampe.

Today it was all about the bike for Amberger on this challenging course which suited him.

"I have to thank my sponsor Felt Bicycles, I’ve got the new Felt IA , Rinnie (Mirinda Carfrae) won Kona on it last week. It’s just amazing, an amazing machine, I’ve really found my legs on it and just happy to give it a thrashing and I’m really happy with my bike today," Amberger said.

"I love it – I’ll be back for sure."

Pip Taylor lead out of the swim from Marangon who then made short work of reeling her in. She then cranked out the 13th fastest bike split of the day (2:59:37) to set up a 9min 20sec lead heading out onto the 21.1km run.

It was then a race for the minor placing’s for the chasers and to see if they could claw back any time on Marangon. Forrest was the quickest on the run to secure a podium place with Ranson doing enough to hold on for third.

Marangon was full of praise for her team that helped her recover from the injury and the fantastic crowd.

Being patient and not running, it all paid off and I’m really, really happy."

"It’s a really good feeling to win this title, I’ve had a pretty rough year not racing to my full potential but maybe that injury that happened ten days ago was a blessing in disguise and I could perform at my best today so I was really, really happy.

It sets the 33 year-old up for a great performance at IRONMAN Western Australian in December.

"It was all about getting my nutrition right which that where I really fault in my Ironman racing so I think I really nailed it today."